We never saw a shark around Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, so far, but you never know. There is a lot of water out there, and this is an open biosphere. But there are good news:

According to a report (thanks to Gadling for the article “You Won’t Get Eaten By A Shark“), the chance to be biten by a shark are very, very low. This past year sharks killed only 4 people and bit 58 others around the world.

While no matter where you travel, shark attacks are highly unlikely, arguably your worst bet is Florida, which accounted for two-thirds of the 38 sharkbites in the United States.

And the second good news: you can protect you by a new device, attached to your board. The Shark Shield SURF generates an electrical field that is detected by the shark through its sensory receptors, known as the Ampullae of Lorenzini, found on the snouts of sharks. Once detected by the shark’s sensors, the field causes muscular spasms that result in the shark being deterred from the area. The field is projected from electrodes in the tail of the unit that trail off the back of the surfboard, much like a legrope. This creates an elliptical field that surrounds the user with a shark safe zone that is up to eight meters in diameter.

You can watch some interesting videos at their site.
[Technorati Tags: surf - shark - Costa Rica ]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 6:40 am and is filed under Surf and travel: books, tools, gear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.